eclectron wrote:Free energy would be a panacea, solving both global warming and the inevitable decline of the fossil fuels on which we depend, and would evacuate the danger of nuclear energy (waste and accidents) since it has become useless.
I anticipate a little your depressive purr: With a clean and abundant energy, many problems disappear.
The demography calms itself as soon as the standard of living and education rise which goes hand in hand with abundant energy.
In short, I say a thorn less thanks to the free energy (clean and abundant) and you will say one more, since we will enjoy this abundance to destroy everything. Unless you evolved?
Before starting, just a reminder (X3!) Of basic physics:free energy is energy that can be fully converted into mechanical work, it has nothing to do with an infinite source of energy from the void!
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89nergie_libre
For the rest:
Your proposals éclectron deserve a dedicated article as it reflects the confused vision that most people have of their relationship to energy:
To know that a clean and unlimited energy would be synonymous with happiness and infinite prosperity.
Unfortunately this assertion is totally wrong ....
It's a simple extrapolation, not a scientifically valid reasoning.
The current ecocide is not related to global warming(1)nor to nuclear waste(2), but only to the increase in entropy produced by industrialization.
We are facing a crisis entropic of nature anthropique!
The Borneo forest does not fall under the effect of GHGs but under the action of chainsaws and other bulldozer, it is therefore fundamentally a question of dissipation of energy within a medium.
Beyond what statistical science tells us is that the too rapid variation of energy flows within a system leads to upheavals proportional to the degree of energy dissipated, up to disruptions (collapse if necessary).
The more energy a society has and the more it becomes violent (3),there is no historical counter example, with an unlimited source of energy, it is easy enough to understand what would happen ... and there is no pessimism behind only calculations!
(1), Not yet thank God! It is very media announced that most of the current disasters would be attributable to the RCA, in fact the majority of scientific articles warn against the future risks of global warming, but very little risk to assert that the current events would be directly attributable to this one.
(2) The example of Chernobyl or Fukushima, no offense to anti-nuclear tend to show that a zone of exclusion following a nuclear accident is actually much more welcoming than an area inhabited by a strong concentration of being human!
(3) Violence in a broad sense: social, societal, technological, internal or external etc ...